The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Hugnomo]

Don't know if you all saw it, but apparently Steve Danuser has indeed left Blizzard, all the way back to November last year. Just saw a spanish wow website report on it.
I guess that makes sense with how Metzen has been very clearly in charge of the narrative direction of the game. And personaly, even though I tend to not be so negative as most, I do think there were glaring narrative missteps in the past few expansions under his watch. So I wish him the best of luck. And hope for a return to form for wow under Metzen's leadership.

[milkmustache]

I'll just say semi-related too, it's a little disheartening to see Season of Discovery have some fun with more race-specific quests for some classes while retail seems to be marching towards further homogenization and sameyness between every race/class combo.

I really, really hope that this is something that comes back in the Saga. If we're going to break down the faction lines and blur faction identity (which is fine, I think it's partially necessary), then racial and class identity should take a waaaaay bigger seat at the table. It's great for worldbuilding and delivering stories that aren't one dimensional and directly tied to a singular narrative in the story.

[Raetary]

Don't know if you all saw it, but apparently Steve Danuser has indeed left Blizzard, all the way back to November last year. Just saw a spanish wow website report on it.
I guess that makes sense with how Metzen has been very clearly in charge of the narrative direction of the game. And personaly, even though I tend to not be so negative as most, I do think there were glaring narrative missteps in the past few expansions under his watch. So I wish him the best of luck. And hope for a return to form for wow under Metzen's leadership.

Can confirm, his Linkedin has the same info.

Danuser really is gone.

[Alanar]

Besides the W3 concept being a "Ranger meets the diablo 2 necromancer," even in classic, Nathanos is always seen with his dire hounds. The Dark Rangers in Hillsbrad have Spider pets. There's an entire storyline about the care & breeding of them as animal companions.They could still add a Dark Ranger hero class in the future, if they were so inclined. The Hunter Hero Tree would probably be renamed to "Gloomstalker" or something.

Necromancer is also still possible. I would enjoy Death Knight pet customization because DK pets are only sometimes skeletons. Half the classes in BG3 have a undead minion themed subclass. So I don't think you can overdo a vague concept like "animals" or "the undead"

There are many overlaps, I agree a skeleton isnt hurting the dk class at all and summoning one through black arrow would only please people. The necromancy part doesnt really seem to be the focus, even tho its mentioned in the description. There are a few abillities that do shadow damage.

Gloomstalker sounds like a fitting spec name indeed. There is so much you can do there. Pigeonholding the archtype doesnt make much sense either, as of blizzard they draw inspiration from many things.

Dark rangers got some more exposure, but that seems to be missing as well. What we got and was explained in the interview, was a little hollow, but it was warcraft 3 and vanilla. Back arrow (warcraft3+wow) and dark hounds Nathanos. Where did wailing arrow come from again? Was that HoTs?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Can confirm, his Linkedin has the same info.

Danuser really is gone.

Hopefully things can go back up to mediocre now.

[allomgie]

Can confirm, his Linkedin has the same info.

Danuser really is gone.

Is he gone from Blizzard or is he just not the Narrative Directore anymore? From what I see on LinkedIn under Projects, he's still part of World of Warcraft.

[Gurahk]

Can confirm, his Linkedin has the same info.

Danuser really is gone.

https://youtu.be/4EG8WoDN4Co?si=DTXdYIA5kSHTupV5

[Foolicious]

Dark rangers got some more exposure, but that seems to be missing as well. What we got and was explained in the interview, was a little hollow, but it was warcraft 3 and vanilla. Back arrow (warcraft3+wow) and dark hounds Nathanos. Where did wailing arrow come from again? Was that HoTs?

Exactly. Wailing arrow is one of sylvanas ultimates. Came from equipping sylvanas bow first in shadowlands and was then added baseline in df.

[Raetary]

Is he gone from Blizzard or is he just not the Narrative Directore anymore? From what I see on LinkedIn under Projects, he's still part of World of Warcraft.

True, i missed that.

But i find it weird that he would update his experiences by concluding his position as narrative lead, but then not update the profile with his newest position.

Anyway, lets stop stalking him before it gets weird.
Not like his involvement matters much since Metzens return.

[Woggmer]

Beast Mastery Dark Ranger is a reach but it has foundation in WC3 and fulfills the "summons skeletons to fight" archetype of Dark Rangers. Survival Dark Ranger is copium based on characters having a close range weapon and offers nothing in regards to the Dark Ranger fantasy.

I think people were hoping that Survival Dark Ranger would be a reason for not having Survival be a melee class and go back to being a ranged dps spec... but I'd be less concerned about Survival and more with Marksman.

[Nymrohd]

Whether Survival should get Dark Ranger for its identity is a pointless discussion anyway. First off, no one is really getting that archetype because the Hero Talent is just not that transformative. Second, it becomes clear how problematic it is to half-ass forcing archetypes on people whether they like them or not.

Once again Blizzard fails by robbing players of their extremely limited agency. All we get to define is our race, faction and class as those were described to us back when each of us made our characters. That was the extent of choice allowed. Yet the devs care only for gameplay and everything else is an illusion they are discarding without any concern.

So imo, they need to just walk back on describing these Hero Talents with terms that identify them as any archetype and just design them as sub specs. Customization should just be separate.

[Woggmer]

Whether Survival should get Dark Ranger for its identity is a pointless discussion anyway. First off, no one is really getting that archetype because the Hero Talent is just not that transformative. Second, it becomes clear how problematic it is to half-ass forcing archetypes on people whether they like them or not.

Once again Blizzard fails by robbing players of their extremely limited agency. All we get to define is our race, faction and class as those were described to us back when each of us made our characters. That was the extent of choice allowed. Yet the devs care only for gameplay and everything else is an illusion they are discarding without any concern.

My issue isn't if it is thematically good or looks cool (it honestly does what it needs to).. but that just from the nods alone, it looks basic. It feels like a button you can just fire at any random point just for some extra benefits rather than an engaging spell to work with that makes you think. It gives you free Aimed Shots at random and summons a pet at random ticks... that's it.

With Oracle, you're playing around with PI but it is an ever-shifting unpredictable spell that turns the priest into a buffer to actually compete with Augmentation Evokers.

I get the issue is that people don't want to have confusing rotations or learning X amount of spells that bloats their action bar, but at least give a spell/ability that is something engaging..

[Viridiel]

I really, really hope that this is something that comes back in the Saga. If we're going to break down the faction lines and blur faction identity (which is fine, I think it's partially necessary), then racial and class identity should take a waaaaay bigger seat at the table. It's great for worldbuilding and delivering stories that aren't one dimensional and directly tied to a singular narrative in the story.

I think allied races are really standing in the way of a strong racial identity. They would need to write 28 new stories to provide the same level of detail we had with class identity in Legion, which is over twice the amount of work. And there will always inevitably be an inequity between the races because some of them have 20-year-old lore and some of them were invented as a throwaway NPC race for a single zone.

That said, I'm hopeful they're going to do some consolidating one-by-one to strip away any unnecessary baggage from some races and reify them as a unique subfaction with a unique place for the player character. There should be a fair bit of this happening in Midnight with the bringing together of the "elf tribes", so I think that's where the work is going to start. But I think the majority of the work is going to happen after the World Soul Saga, hopefully continuing with old-world revamps since they will inevitably involve areas of importance to almost all races, and the others really should be woven in to make them feel more connected to Azeroth in its entirety.

[Nymrohd]

My issue isn't if it is thematically good or looks cool (it honestly does what it needs to).. but that just from the nods alone, it looks basic. It feels like a button you can just fire at any random point just for some extra benefits rather than an engaging spell to work with that makes you think. It gives you free Aimed Shots at random and summons a pet at random ticks... that's it.

With Oracle, you're playing around with PI but it is an ever-shifting unpredictable spell that turns the priest into a buffer to actually compete with Augmentation Evokers.

I get the issue is that people don't want to have confusing rotations or learning X amount of spells that bloats their action bar, but at least give a spell/ability that is something engaging..

Well my issue is that if I want to play Hemet Nessingwary, a dwarven rifleman who is clearly an MM hunter, I no longer can do that in TWW for the first time since vanilla. Because all MM hunters will have to either be Dark Rangers or Sentinels. And I am sure that if we think about it, there will be similar problems elsewhere because any spec that supported more than two archetypes before TWW will have to kiss those extras goodbye.

And no, Oracle in no way competes with Augmentation. That is a deeply unserious position. The main contribution of an Oracle Priest will still be by far their healing output.

[Woggmer]

Well my issue is that if I want to play Hemet Nessingwary, a dwarven rifleman who is clearly an MM hunter, I no longer can do that in TWW for the first time since vanilla. Because all MM hunters will have to either be Dark Rangers or Sentinels. And I am sure that if we think about it, there will be similar problems elsewhere because any spec that supported more than two archetypes before TWW will have to kiss those extras goodbye.

Ah, okay... I think that just boils down to "What Defines a Hunter? What separates them from being an archer/gunner vs a huntsman/huntress?" but that's a whole other discussion in of itself.

And no, Oracle in no way competes with Augmentation. That is a deeply unserious position. The main contribution of an Oracle Priest will still be by far their healing output.

Yeah, that's fair... Considering that Aug is a dps spec and Oracle is for both priest healing specs, then they can just stack the benefits.

[Alanar]

Exactly. Wailing arrow is one of sylvanas ultimates. Came from equipping sylvanas bow first in shadowlands and was then added baseline in df.

I would have liked some interaction with wailing arrow in the new tree. Thematically very fitting. Wailing arrow as it stand, is a bad abillity. This could have been improved as well.

[Nebron]

Steve Danuser leaving Blizzard / stepping down from Narrative Director role is probably one of the best news for WoW lately. Even if the worst narrative decisions were not a creation of his imagination, in the end, it was his role to authorize them and put them in the game. He takes the blame for the bad things that happened under his rule.

Not sure whether Metzen can create great storylines, but there's hope he will get things straight with a long-term vision in mind, keep things simple and clean, and put them out of game-of-throne-esque vibes, which never belonged, not only to WoW, but to MMORPG in general in the first place.

I hope the major story threads will remain cohesive and in tune with each other for the Worldsoul Saga. I wish WoW will be pulled out of morally grey zone and the forces for good and evil will clarify itself on the way, with a little twists here and there to spice things up and surprise the audience from time to time. The end-game master plotting backfired every single time it was introduced to the game, and it only became tolerable, because the narrative was already on it's all time lows for quite a while. Dragonflight had a huge potential to be a new spark of life, but it didn't go that well either, having hard time to keep the importance of looming darkness and chill, soothing atmosphere in balance.

The paradox in writing is that simplicity gives an abundance of artistic freedom to explore the most mundane and cliche themes in a new, exciting and provocative ways. It's actually the complexity, especially a poorly implemented one, that kills the narrative with it's goals midway.

That said, I really hope Metzen and his team will be able to pull this off well, even if the game is never going to be at it's finest ever again, at least for the reminder of us who actually desire to enjoy WoW storytelling once more.

[doledippers]

one thing im happy about with danuser (potentially) leaving is that whenever there is bad story moments people can't just blame danuser for it. Curious how the metzen groupies will sort that out in their heads when the time comes

[Nymrohd]

Ah, okay... I think that just boils down to "What Defines a Hunter? What separates them from being an archer/gunner vs a huntsman/huntress?" but that's a whole other discussion in of itself.

The thing is, currently they can be both because the class is loosely defined. This is true for many classes. The Hero Talents suddenly are constricting the design space.

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one thing im happy about with danuser (potentially) leaving is that whenever there is bad story moments people can't just blame danuser for it. Curious how the metzen groupies will sort that out in their heads when the time comes

The idea that people disliked Danuser because they were Metzen groupies is not grounded in reality. The dislike for Danuser came largely from the widely published screenshots of those extremely moronic tweets of his and then grew by how poorly he performed at most live presentations. I mean, just watch the Zereth Mortis reveal video...
Metzen was a comparison after the fact.

[Cheezits]

No one's ever really gone...

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It must really suck to be an employee so reviled you can't even post a goodbye message because people would celebrate it.

Unless he chose to leave in peace?